A Study On The Over-nativized Rewriting In English Film Subtitling From The Perspective Of Translation Ethics

Since the time when film came into being, it has become an important carrier of culture and plays a leading role in cross-culture communication. With the deepening of the opening-up to outside world and the growing exchange with foreign cultures, more and more foreign films, especially English films, have been imported into Chinese market. Subtitled films with original soundtracks and translated subtitles, which are also seen as a vital tool to learn of foreign languages and cultures, have gained more popularity among Chinese viewers. In recent years, however, the subtitling of English films has presented itself with an increasingly evident trend, which is referred to in the present paper as the “over-nativized rewriting”, that is, the subtitling is filled with excessive and random use of Chinese-characterized Internet language, phrases, poems and some other Chinese elements. In 2012, with the release of two films Men in Black 3and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, this trend stirred up a heated discussion among the Chinese audience and media. Some think it is “close to the mass” and can create “smile effect”, but more argue that it is “too excursive” and makes it “hard for them to be immersed in the films”.On the basis of the Rewriting Theory, this thesis analyzes the influence of ideology and poetics on translation first, and then, it states the two consequences that may appear:either the constraints of the authority and ideology are excessively stressed or the subjectivities of the translators are extraordinarily exaggerated. In the first case,translators may become over-cautious and meticulous, which results in queer translated texts filled with translationese on one hand. In the second case, translators may take casual attitude to the translation, because it seems to them that, as rewriting, any mistranslation, lapse of translation or pseudo-translation can be given a reasonable theoretical account. The over-nativized rewriting discussed in the present paper is obviously the consequence of the latter.With regard to foreign films, which are the object of the present study, the author believes that the translation of the subtitles should highlight, as much as possible, rather than interfere with, the source culture and source language of the original foreign films.Only in this way can the Chinese audience experience the flavor and authenticity of the original films. Yet, the trend of the over-nativized rewriting in the translation of English film subtitles in recent years has disappointed the Chinese audience considerably in the four following forms:(1) excessive use of buzzwords and networds;(2) misuse or abuse of ancient Chinese poems and idioms;(3) indiscriminative borrowing of local celebrities’ names;(4) groundless or senseless replacement of the original. In view of this growing phenomenon and the increasing negative effect, the author of this paper calls on the subtilters(translators) to strictly abide by the 5 models of translation ethics,namely, “ethics of representation”, “ethics of service”, “ethics of communication”,“norm-based ethics” and “ethics of commitment” which require that the subtitlerrepresent the intention of the source writer and source text to the largest extent, fully recognize and consider the expectations of target audience, respect the culture of both languages and act as the inter-mediator to promote the communication of two cultures.In addition, the author also call on the administrative institutions to set up some standardized official subtitling mechanism as soon as possible, so that subtitle translators can strive for a better command of the bilingual competence and become more aware of the ethics in the translation of foreign film subtitles.